Lost civilization garden. . . .found(?) Archaeologists hunt for lost Wisbech garden

To the untrained eye, it looks a little like a cross between the Time Team and croquet as they take measured paces across the manicured grass, in time with their beeping equipment.

National Trust officials today called in the experts to take a look at what lies under the neat lawn of Peckover House, an imposing trust-owned Georgian merchant's house on the banks of the Nene in Wisbech.

Head gardener Allison Napier, who looks after two stunning acres within earshot of the town centre traffic, believes evidence of an earlier garden built by the Peckover family, who lived in the house for 150 years after it was built in 1722, could lie beneath the croquet lawn.